Not a whole lot has happened in February, but now that the month is almost over I'll share a bit of what I've been doing. The second week of February was Chinese New Year in Korea, which meant five days of vacation. But before I could enjoy my time off we had to teach the children at school about their traditions. As you can see from the pictures the children are wearing their traditional Korean garments. As part of their custom, children bow to their parents on New Years as a sign of respect. Once vacation started, I spent most of my time relaxing in Gimpo and Seoul. But I did take one day to go snowboarding with some friends. This was an early day, we had to get up at 6:00am to catch the 6:30 bus. We then took a free shuttle to the hill, rented our gear, and hit the slopes around 10:00am. From what I had heard the ski resorts in Korea are supposed to be packed with people. However since it was the holiday there were hardly any people there. That was good for me since it was only my second attempt at snowboarding and I was able to learn without running into anyone.
After the break it was back to work. We have a lot to do since the new school year begins in March, which means we will get a new bunch of kindergartens and other afternoon classes will be changing. I'm a little sad to say goodbye to my kindergarten class, but they have also realized that they're leaving and haven't been that cooperative the last few weeks. I also received a new work schedule and although it isn't set in stone, most likely I won't have a kindergarten class for the rest of my time here. I'll be focusing more on the elementary students that come in the afternoon. This means I'll probably start work around 2:00pm instead of 11:30am, and work until 9:00pm instead of 7:30pm. Another reason for the change is that my roommate, Michael is going back home to the United States. Originally we believed he was going to stay another month or two but apparently that's not the case. We had quite the shock last Friday when we heard the news. It will be sad to see him leave because he's been a good friend out here for me. From what I understand the new teacher is a woman from Los Angeles and she will most likely be my new roommate. I really don't have a say in who I live with since the school only owns two, two-bedroom apartments and there are three women and one man working for them. March will definitely bring change.
